Interesting post, I wonder if it is true? I remember a post from Valentino a year or two ago saying that the current owner of 72-01 is registered with them. I wonder if it is the person who claims it was stolen from him 20 years ago or the person that is currently actually in possession?

Must be my sense of black humour but I couldn't help but chuckle: "The current owner is registered with us but prefers to remain anonymous, for understandable reasons". I could certainly think of at least ONE very understandable reason!

But in all seriousness, I'm not suggesting anything here. There's still something strange about this. If 72-01 was stolen from the rightful owner about 20-25 years ago, then who's the current owner? This person in the yahoo group claims that he's contacted Alembic about this, but without any response. Now that doesn't sound right at all, Alembic would not treat any customer that way, certainly not the owner of #1. But it's too early and there's not enough information to conclude that he's just a storyteller. I'm really puzzled... Calling in Sherlock Holmes!

In the days when the old Yahoo club was still active this person posted the same question over and over again, claiming #1 had been stolen from him. He was referred to this cosy little club here, but I don't remember him repeating the question here.

Here's a link to the guy's story. Sounds like he is confusing his terms. He claims he was trying to purchase it from a music store who sold it to someone else. Appears to me someone stole his money not the bass.

So the rightful owner might just be someone who went in that same music store, saw 72-01 hanging on the wall, and pulled out his wallet to pay the full amount there and then. Not wanting to be stalked by a Klingon insisting that it is (or at least should've been) his bass also sounds like a very understandable reason to remain anonymous, LOL!

This is the first time I've heard of a store stealing merchandise. Puts a whole new definition to shop lifting. That has to be a story in itself. Perhaps, and I'm just speculating here since none of us have all the facts, he did indeed buy the bass, took it to the store in Mill Valley and either sold it to the store for a huge loss or had the store work on it and did not have the funds to retrieve it. He could be saying the store "stole" the bass metaphorically. Possibly rather than being dillusional this gentleman is merely still upset over having had such a gem and letting it get away from him. Another possibilty would be that he left the bass at the store for whatever reason and when he tried to retrieve it the store denied having any knowledge of it. But that senario would be a stretch. Again, just speculating. It's a slow day at work.

I lost a really cool German version of an echoplex to a repair shop in Boston. It was completely tube powered (with the cool magic eye tube to judge levels). I brought to the place behind Berklee when it failed and went on the road and lost the ticket. When I got back a few months later, they said they never heard of such a thing. I later saw one in Amsterdam at a music store, but didn't have the mean to either buy it or carry it with me.

As far as #1, Rick Turner said a while back:

"For any of you Bay Area bassists who want to see the first Alembic bass, serial number 71-001---made by me for Jack Casady in 1971---there's a new show at the San Francisco museum of Modern Art titled "Far Out, Bay Area Design, 1967 to 1973" ... [I was able] to enter it (along with a guitar from 1969) in the show. The bass hardly ever sees the light of day, and I, for one, will be glad to see it again."

I saw that show, it was very cool as was the Pretzel Guitar that Rick made. I also got a lot of emails from the guy who claimed to have lost this bass. It's been years since I heard anything about it, though.

Marcky posted clippings from an old Music Maker article about a 1984 factory tour (http://alembic.com/club/messages/393/23534.html). It has a picture of the "test bed bass" - I seem to remember its nickname is mentioned in the article - which appears to be a Small Standard, with half of the top wing sawn off (sideways).

The 80s hairdo person handling the fretless was the bass player with Vandenberg (Vandenburg?). That band was of course headed by Adje Vandenberg, who moved on to Whitesnake, Coverdale, e tutti quanti - there was even a Peavey Vandenberg signature model for a while.

... come to think of it, there as also talk of the osage orange bass having been used as a test bed, though not by Alembic, after it had started to delaminate (pre-echoes of Michael's Katrina bass ...)

I heard that story, too, adriaan. Fred Hammon of Hammon Engineering (who are putting out "reissues" of the Hagstrom pickups used in Guild basses) has the OO bass' pickups. The guy who gave them to him said the rest of the bass was used as a test bed for many bizarre experiments and is now a carcass, IIRC.